Professional Development Framework

Offerings

Lab sites will be scheduled regularly across departments to offer teachers time to visit and observe effective teacher practices. Teachers should host at least one lab site per semester and attend two lab sites a month. A schedule for Lead Teacher lab sites will be accessible in the teacher program.

Lab Site Visits

Teachers have the option to participate in inter-visitations with a peer or mentor to set PD goals for growth around a specific format.

Peer Inter-visitations

Using LC rubrics, teacher and peer observe one another in the format that aligns to their PD goal.

Debriefs are scheduled during Monday after-school PD, with teachers utilizing the PD Update form to discuss the indicators they are excelling at and need push for growth in, making commitments to be observed in the following cycle.

PD Lead will facilitate Lab Site sign-up and scheduling once teachers have constructed a narrative of growth within a format and have clear takeaways to share with staff.

Teachers request or are assigned a coach who will visit the class, offer feedback as well as plan with the teacher to identify the teacher’s strengths, needs and goals. This is not format specific and does not necessarily include an intervisitation component. All feedback offered will be aligned to Learning Cultures Rubrics and mapped onto Danielson Framework for Teaching.

Coaching

Coaches meet monthly with administration to share their own strengths, challenges and goals in order to receive feedback and identify best practices.

October-June: Principal coaches lead teachers with established Lab Sites and coaching duties.

October-June: Principal coaches lead teachers with established Lab Sites and coaching duties.

Coaching occurs weekly or biweekly, based on availability and/or need.

Teachers request or are assigned a residency in which an administrator or coach comes into their classroom and models or co-teaches a class with a teacher for a two week cycle. This will also include support on planning and coaching, with meetings scheduled for feedback using the coaching protocol provided.

April-June: Principal and APs conduct residencies for 1 month each with teachers who have Developing or Ineffective MOTP ratings.

The Department meeting structure is in place for teachers to plan and revise curriculum based on common expectations using student work and data. Teachers will be share curricular choices and student facing maps while also looking at student outcomes. Teachers will use the Looking at Student Work protocol (LASW) in order to ground all questions, comments and take-aways in data from the classroom. Teachers may use the protocol to look at records protocol, or they may choose to read and engage in other group learning. Department Leads share their department outcomes and goals with the principal in Curriculum Team meetings.

Department Teams

Weekly: Looking At Student Work Protocol.

Weekly: Review of PD commitments and departmental needs, creating a narrative of growth within each department.

The school will utilize its in-house inquiry team to assist in PD planning. Based on a consensual commitment to the Learning Cultures model, the team will assume responsibility to identify areas of need across the school and to determine how to address them. The team will consist of the principal, the Professional Development Lead, the UFT Chapter Leader and UFT Chapter Leader designee.

PD (SBSD) Team

Team members are established in September and meet on a monthly basis to touch base on PD facilitation, PD opportunities and provide relevant feedback to structures in place.

Fishbowls are a result of Department Meeting commitments. Email PD Lead to have it scheduled the following week.

Teachers have the opportunity to experiment curriculum ideas that tie to the core values of Learning Cultures (intentionality, cooperation and responsibility) after presenting to Department Leads and receiving approval from Administration. Split screen research will happen in short cycles with predetermined intended outcomes and teachers will be responsible for reporting progress and data to Department Leads throughout the innovation. All data is shared with the principal in Department Lead meetings.

Splitscreen

November: Curriculum Team will open up applications for split screen research strategies to departments. Teachers will apply and participate in 6 week long process.

In the fall, teachers will have the opportunity to participate in Learning Cultures formats while students watch, in order to model for students what the format should look like, as well as better understand the format from a student’s perspective. Additional fishbowls can be scheduled at the request of teachers during the spring semester.

Fishbowls

Teachers volunteer a lunch on a monthly basis to read pre-selected or pre-approved texts (either provided by volunteers or Admin) to delve further into theory and garner a greater understanding of pedagogy and curricula

Lunch Meeting

Students from Keepers of the Culture will do weekly walkthroughs of 3 classrooms to notice trends and provide feedback on environmental and curricular feedback.

Student Walkthrough

Jan-Jun: Cross-Department walkthroughs

Feedback delivered Tuesday

Oct-Jan: Department focused walkthroughs

Jan-Jun: Cross-Department walkthroughs

Danielson Framework for Teaching

Classroom observations are conducted using the NYC DOE Advance rating system. Teachers are evaluated on the Danielson Framework for Teaching on indicators: 1a, 1e, 2a, 2d, 3b, 3c, 3d, 4e. The Learning Cultures format rubrics serve as tools for actionable feedback on teaching practice. The Learning Cultures format outline teacher actions that represent Highly Effective teaching practice in the Danielson Framework. School administrators and teachers make reference to the LC rubrics and feedback to guide self-assessment and professional goals. School leadership provides feedback on Danielson Evaluations using the Learning Cultures rubrics to ensure that all students have opportunity to participate in high quality, scientifically based instruction provided by qualified personnel.

Instructional Accounting

The Learning Cultures model is based on a tenet of equality of educational opportunity. Within the model, learning opportunities are occasions to take part in social practices, specified by the procedures delineated in the format rubrics. The practice of taking dialogical record in each format incorporates a mechanism to provide immediate feedback to students of evidence of learning and to keep a record of students who have received high quality, scientifically based instruction.

It is incumbent upon the school leadership to assume responsibility to ensure that each student has sufficient opportunity to participate in high quality instruction (Learning Cultures Formats). Periodic goals should be established for how many opportunities each students should have to participate in each type of format (e.g., four UR sessions per week, 2 conferences per week). This is called instructional accounting and is the responsibility of the teacher to plan for and record these opportunities. School leadership monitors records to identify cases where instructional accounting may not be meeting student need and to identify teachers who require more training in the Learning Cultures Formats.

Non-Evaluative PD

Cynthia McCallister works in consultation with the Principal and in collaboration with faculty (study group facilitators, inquiry team members, assessment workshop coordinators) to plan, implement, monitor and participate in PD initiatives

The Learning Cultures Framework for Professional Development is designed to build school level capacity with relative independence of external contract vendors. In order to do so, a number of components must be in place, where a cycle of observation-feedback has been established, and teachers identify their own goals for learning. Within the Learning Cultures curriculum model, all classroom teachers adhere to the curriculum formats; in doing so, they should exercise agency to take part in in-house professional development offerings, described below.

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